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Fort Lillo is a former military fort built as part of the Antwerp Defence Line on the right bank of the Schelde, and completely surrounded by the industrial port of Antwerp.
Built between 1579–82 on the orders of William the Silent to defend Antwerp, in 1809 during the Napoleonic Wars the fort was attacked by the British while under occupation by the forces of Napoleon. [1] Along with Fort Liefkenshoek on the opposite bank of the Scheldt these heavily armed defences proved a formidable obstacle to attacking forces. [2]
Of the three towns that formerly comprised the village of Lillo, Fort Lillo is the only one to survive, the other two - Oud Lillo (lit. "Old Lillo") and Lillo-Kruisweg (lit. "Lillo Crossroads") were evacuated in 1958 then demolished and razed to allow the expansion of the port of Antwerp. Fort Lillo shared the fate of three other polder villages: Wilmarsdonk, Oosterweel and Oorderen. Fort Lillo has been preserved and is today part of the "ethonological polder" historical ground north of Antwerp.
Walcheren is a region and former island in the Dutch province of Zeeland at the mouth of the Scheldt estuary. It lies between the Eastern Scheldt in the north and the Western Scheldt in the south and is roughly the shape of a rhombus. The two sides facing the North Sea consist of dunes and the rest of its coastline is made up of dykes. Middelburg, the provincial capital, lies at Walcheren's centre. Vlissingen, 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) to the south, is the main harbour and the third municipality is Veere.
Beveren is a municipality in the Belgian province of East Flanders which comprises the towns of Beveren, Doel, Haasdonk, Kallo, Kieldrecht, Melsele, Verrebroek and Vrasene.
The 63rd Division was a United Kingdom infantry division of the First World War. It was originally formed as the Royal Naval Division at the outbreak of the war, from Royal Navy and Royal Marine reservists and volunteers, who were not needed for service at sea. For RN personel, the designation HMS Victory IV was used. The division fought at Antwerp in 1914 and at Gallipoli in 1915. In 1916, following many losses among the original naval volunteers, the division was transferred to the British Army as the 63rd Division, re-using the number from the disbanded second-line 63rd Division Territorial Force. As an Army formation, it fought on the Western Front for the remainder of the war.
The siege of Antwerp was an engagement between the German and the Belgian, British and French armies around the fortified city of Antwerp during World War I. German troops besieged a garrison of Belgian fortress troops, the Belgian field army and the British Royal Naval Division in the Antwerp area, after the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914. The city, which was ringed by forts known as the National Redoubt, was besieged to the south and east by German forces.
The National Redoubt was a strategic defensive belt of fortifications built in Belgium. The National redoubt was the infrastructural cornerstone of Belgian defensive strategy from 1890–1940.
Modlin Fortress is one of the largest 19th-century fortresses in Poland. It is located in the town of Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki in district Modlin on the Narew river, approximately 50 kilometers north of Warsaw. It was originally constructed by the French from 1806 to 1812.
The Battle of the Scheldt in World War II was a series of military operations led by the First Canadian Army, with Polish and British units attached, to open up the shipping route to Antwerp so that its port could be used to supply the Allies in north-west Europe. Under acting command of the First Canadian's Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds, the battle took place in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands from 2 October to 8 November 1944.
Berendrecht is a neighbourhood and former village in Antwerp province in Belgium. Its name means "dike of the bear", according to the area's dialect, or "dike of a man called Bear", or "passage by the marsh". But drecht or tricht means "ferry" or "crossing", and ber or bere in Indo-European means "dam", "defence against water" : the resulting meaning is "river crossing at a dam".
The Port of Antwerp is the port of the City of Antwerp. It is located in Flanders (Belgium), mainly in the province of Antwerp but also partially in the province of East Flanders. It is a seaport in the heart of Europe accessible to capesize ships. It is Europe’s second-largest seaport, after Rotterdam. Antwerp stands at the upper end of the tidal estuary of the Scheldt. The estuary is navigable by ships of more than 100,000 Gross Tons as far as 80 km inland. Like the Port of Hamburg, the Port of Antwerp's inland location provides a more central location in Europe than the majority of North Sea ports. Antwerp's docks are connected to the hinterland by rail, road, and river and canal waterways. As a result, the port of Antwerp has become one of Europe's largest seaports, ranking second behind Rotterdam by total freight shipped. Its international rankings vary from 11th to 20th (AAPA). In 2012, the Port of Antwerp handled 14,220 sea trade ships, 57,044 inland barges, and offered liner services to 800 different maritime destinations.
Oorderen was a small Belgian village near the city of Antwerp until 1965. It was demolished because of the extension of the Port of Antwerp.
A burh or burg was an Old English fortification or fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids and invasions by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs and roads to use against such attackers. Some were new constructions; others were situated at the site of Iron Age hillforts or Roman forts and employed materials from the original fortifications. As at Lundenburh, many were also situated on rivers: this facilitated internal lines of supply while aiming to restrict access to the interior of the kingdom for attackers in shallow-draught vessels such as longships.
The Battle of Kallo was a major field battle fought from 20 to 21 June 1638 in and around the forts of Kallo and Verrebroek, located on the left bank of the Scheldt river, near Antwerp, during the second phase of the Eighty Years' War. Following the symbolic recovery of Breda during the 1637 campaign, the Dutch Republic agreed with the French Crown, with whom it had allied in 1635, to besiege a major city in the Spanish Netherlands during the 1638 campaign. The commander of the Dutch States Army, Frederick Henry of Orange, planned an approach over Antwerp from the two sides of the Scheldt. Count William of Nassau-Siegen was entrusted to land in the Spanish-controlled Waasland region, west of Antwerp, to seize the forts of Kallo and Verrebroek, along with several other key fortifications, to invest Antwerp from the west. In the meantime, Frederick Henry would advance on the opposite bank to complete the blockade of the city while the armies of France invaded the Spanish Netherlands from the south to oblige the Spanish Army of Flanders to divide its forces.
Loughor Castle is a ruined, medieval fortification located in the town of Loughor, Wales. The castle was built around 1106 by the Anglo-Norman lord Henry de Beaumont, during the Norman invasion of Wales. The site overlooked the River Loughor and controlled a strategic road and ford running across the Gower Peninsula. The castle was designed as an oval ringwork, probably topped by wicker fence defences, and reused the remains of the former Roman fort of Leucarum.
The Battle of Ekeren, which took place on 30 June 1703, was a battle of the War of the Spanish Succession. The French surrounded the much smaller Dutch force, which however managed to beat it back, break out and retire to safety. The battle had no strategic effect whatsoever.
The siege of Dunkirk in World War II began in September 1944, when Allied units of the Second Canadian Division surrounded the fortified city and port of Dunkirk. The siege lasted until after the official end of the war in Europe. German units within the fortress withstood probing attacks and as the opening of the port of Antwerp was more important, the 21st Army Group commander, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, decided to contain but not capture Dunkirk with the 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade. The fortress, commanded by Admiral Friedrich Frisius, eventually surrendered unconditionally to Brigadier General Alois Liška, the commander of the Czechoslovak brigade group, on 9 May 1945, a day after the surrender of Nazi Germany took effect.
Operation Undergo was an attack by the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division on the German garrison and fortifications of the French port of Calais, during September 1944. A subsidiary operation was executed to capture German long-range, heavy artillery at Cap Gris Nez, which threatened the sea approaches to Boulogne. The operation was part of the Clearing the Channel Coast undertaken by the First Canadian Army, following the victory of Operation Overlord and the break-out from Normandy. The assault on Calais used the tactics of Operation Wellhit at Boulogne, sealing the town, bombardments from land, sea and air, followed by infantry assaults supported by armour, including flame-throwing tanks and creeping barrages.
Bratton Castle is a bivallate Iron Age built hill fort on Bratton Down, at the western edge of the Salisbury Plain escarpment. The hill fort comprises two circuits of ditch and bank which together enclose a pentagonal area of 9.3 hectares.
Antwerp is the largest city in Belgium by area at 204.51 square kilometres (78.96 sq mi) and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, it is the most populous city center in Belgium, and with a metropolitan population of around 1,200,000 people; it is the second-largest metropolitan region after Brussels.
Eierland is a former island in the Netherlands. It is now the northern part of the island of Texel. The name means "egg land", named for the seagull eggs that were collected on the island and sent to Amsterdam.
Kallo is a village and deelgemeente (sub-municipality) of Beveren in East Flanders, Belgium. Kallo was an independent municipality until 1 January 1977, when it merged with Beveren as part of the fusion of municipalities in Belgium. Most of the deelgemeente consists of harbours and industrial zones.
Coordinates: 51°18′16″N4°17′22″E / 51.304385°N 4.28941°E
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